Spend time developing the logo. Far too many logos are slapped together and never work. I think logo design is one of the most difficult sides to Graphic Design. A good designer will spend time developing and creating a unique design bespoke for that particular client.

I'm a Self-Learning "designer" from Malaysia. Throughout my learning process till date, i realizes that there had been many teachings and sharing about what a good logo should be by many designers on the internet, but what interest me most is that how actually the designer(s) foresee the "final product's" themselves.

To me, not only a good logo but a successful logo should not only communicate the nature of the business it represents but the influence of its existence. Close to the heart of such company's core value, embrace the vision & mission of such company.

Hey, thanks everyone for the advice...I'm gonna go back to the drawing board on this one...

I want to design a logo for my freelancing business with my initials SJ - needs to represent in some way architecture, interior and graphic design yet also be quite simple. I've been holding back the one I sketched then drew up on computer is pretty dull and not necessarily that indicative of what I do...(see my avatar pic - yup rubbish! <cue embarrassed redness to the face> Didn't wanna draw too much attention to it lol). I want to use both initials architecturally (shelter of some sort) and 'S' has to come before 'J'.

I've got some ideas but yeah like many of you seem to agree I need to spend sometime on this! (Finding it difficult at the mo cos I'm 'trying' (big emphasis on 'trying'!) to juggle quite a few things outside of freelancing! I'll post some thoughts up when I do!

Personally I think a personal logo needs to be something you're happy with. The time I took on mine was probably longer than I've spent on some of the ones I've done for clients, even more so with my revised design (can be seen by clicking smiley face in sig) purely as you play around with the idea in your head for a lot longer.

As you seem to reference architecture may I suggest looking towards the more classical architecture periods of frank llloyd wright and charles renee mackintosh (plus others obviously) and see how they did their branding as they had a very stylised but clinical type design which was applied to all aspects of their work.

Personally I think a personal logo needs to be something you're happy with. The time I took on mine was probably longer than I've spent on some of the ones I've done for clients, even more so with my revised design (can be seen by clicking smiley face in sig) purely as you play around with the idea in your head for a lot longer.

Click to expand...

Totally agree. If it is for someone else, we'll be giving our best shot to get it right with the shortest time possible to finalize it; but when it comes to personal logo its just like there are still room to improve it aye?

Designers' thoughts really are somewhat different than a business minded person though they were trained someway to posses those thoughts but they mostly unable to apply it when it comes to their concern. Sometimes when i want to re-design the logo i have for myself makes me think, do i want to grow (with) this logo or i want to grow (by) the logo? [I start to 'crack' myself in this case, separated from my body i started to talk to my soul...its kinda spooky but fun! lol]

I think a good logo should be timeless. Some of really big players in business have never had to change their logo, or have only updated it slightly, thus retaining their brand. Simplicity is probably the easiest way to make a timeless logo in my opinion, that doesn’t mean it’s the best way.

Thank you all for your comments! Since I decided to use my name as the 'logo'. I guess it's in the early stages, very early stages of branding my work. I agree that it should be timeless and easily adaptable.I haven't used visual graphics - I want people to remember my name (correctly without the 'U' after the 'Q'. After much googling I realised that there were not many 'Sadiqa Jabbars' publicised as yet, so why not right?

The only trouble is that the font used on the website is not readily available on my laptop so finding something similar to reproduce for other marketing material (business cards, invoicing, letterheads etc) will be difficult - can anyone suggest where I could find fonts online?

I believe a good logo can be presented in other colours as well as being simple. Simplicity is the key. A lot of logos best work with typography, especially if it a personal logo. You can look through some beautiful fonts and choose your favourite. You could also use all sorts of different shapes that could represent you the best and use that in conjunction with your initials and could work very well. Personally, I used a circle with my initials AW and added '//' as an added extra. If you look around at other brands, you will see that the majority are very simple but effective. Such as the Nike swish, or the hidden FedEx arrow! Hope this helps, if you would like any constructive criticism I am more than happy to help!